I was idly watching bits of ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ on TV the other night. There was one scene where Tom Hanks flies to NYC to retrieve his eight-year-old son Jonah who has himself flown to NYC to get to the top of the Empire State Bldg to meet the woman he wants his father to marry.

Tom Hanks jumps into a yellow cab at La Guardia and goes over the 59th St Bridge to get to the Empire State Bldg. A camera follows the cab from the side. You get this fantastic middle range view of the bridge, all beautifully ugly metal struts and cantilevers, and in the center of the screen the yellow taxi on the roadway moving right, seen first from the side quite close up, and then the camera pans away to the skyline of downtown East Side NYC (no Twin Towers, thank God).

Suddenly I got two dissonant but pleasant feelings: First I saw NYC as this iconic place that was all symbols and skyline, the way I thought about it before I got here, and viewed it after I arrived. And then I saw the NYC I was personally familiar with too — the place I lived in and traversed. And strangely, and quite undeservedly, I felt a flash of pride that I actually lived here.

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Serge Gainsbourg captures some of this in his song ‘New York USA’ which requires very little knowledge of French:

? ? J?ai vu New York

New York U.S.A.

J?ai vu New York

New York U.S.A.

J?ai jamais rien vu d?au

J?ai jamais rien vu d?aussi haut

Oh ! C?est haut, c?est haut New York

New York U.S.A.

Empire States Building oh ! c?est haut

Rockfeller Center oh ! c?est haut

Internationnal Building oh ! c?est haut

Waldorf Astoria oh ! c?est haut

Panamerican Building oh ! c?est haut

Bank of Manhattan oh ! c?est haut

? ?